by Aldus Marius on Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:07 am
Salvete amici...
I have posted extensively on the same subject and from the same point of view. Some of my stuff is in the Curia (formerly known as the Senate), some in Comitia, some scattered about in other areas of the Forum. But by far the bulk of it is in the Concilium deliberations, which were moved to the Comitia once the new Regula was adopted. I won't make you go there. (You can if you like, though; I was eloquent that year.) In sum: I find the current system colorless, amorphic, and confusing.
Consuls, Censors, Praetores, Aediles...Orders, Provinces, the Collegia, the Senate...all were written out of the new Regula. (I could've used a Praetor last week.) What's left...? --A charter for a well-run Web site, with Board and chatroom attached. I had that much on my own Page, the Roman Outpost, ten years ago...and an e-list besides. The way things stand right now, it is difficult even for someone with a long memory to think of the SVR in terms other than as an Internet resource. Maybe that's just your confuzzled Webmaster speaking; the site and the Forum have been my world for the last several months, and it's hard to pull my head out of the code some days. But it's a far cry from the magistri and discipuli, the praeceptores to guide the newbies, the rectores of actual collegia, the provinciae and circuli I had envisioned way back in the neverwhen (go ahead, ask), when the SVR was going to be not just about learning the Romans, but being one...and helping the next person to become one.
There's a thread in the Comitia called Towards a Better SVR. In it, several founding members discussed their visions for this community. The train of thought is rather broken-up now since the abrupt departure of one of our last two Consuls, Tiberius Coruncanius, who had a lot to say on this subject and took all his posts with him. But I re-posted a talking-paper I wrote for the Yahoo group [romanitas], in which our future conditores, having just left Nova Roma almost en masse, kicked ideas around about whether they wanted to form a Roman Entity of their own, and if so, what its nature might be. The paper is called "A New Foundation", and still represents my two bits on what the Societas looked like to me back when we all were excited about it.
I have enjoyed my experience with the Societas. To the extent that it was going to be a scholarly yet friendly community of Roman enthusiasts and Romans-in-Spirit, I have not been disappointed. Perhaps it felt more Roman when most of us were fresh from an environment where we had gentes and Citizenship, the two great forms of Belonging that greet the newcomer to Nova Roma. (These may be a large part of that organization's appeal.) In that case, Romanness is something we each brought with us...and it hasn't gone away.
But there are environments in which Romanitas flourishes; those in which it takes a brutal beating; and those in which it just gets by. I believe inner Romanitas (as opposed to interest in Rome) has been "just getting by" in the Societas for some time now, certainly since the tepid restructure we blessed ourselves with last summer. We lightened the hand on the reins, certainly; but we've lost any sense of guidance. What is in the SVR now for the sodales? Do we have real-world activity, do we recruit our friends and interested strangers, can we (re)create a more close-knit learning experience for new members...? If we only meet online, this will stay an Internet society. What we need instead is our own version of a great Belonging; not borrowed from any other group, but one we make for ourselves.
Any ideas? Quid censites, amici...?
In amicitia et fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.